


A Demon's Perspective

by WitchFlame (RachelMcN)



Series: The Summoning of Angels and Consequences Thereof [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Compulsion, Crowley Would Like to Go Home Now Please, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Demon Summoning, Eldritch Aziraphale (Good Omens), Eldritch beings, Gen, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Newt is a Supportive Friend, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Sexual Submission, Only a Brief Mention if That Is a Trigger For You, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Please Stop Summoning Demons It Isn't Good For Anybodys Health, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Scared Crowley (Good Omens), Specifically of Feathers, Spellcraft is Tricky, Summoning, Summoning Circles, Summonings Would Suck Okay, Wings, Witchcraft, Witches, usually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24090313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RachelMcN/pseuds/WitchFlame
Summary: He steps into a rip in space that should not exist and feels the world flip as the summoning takes him.Crowley stands or kneels in the interior of a circle while an angel looks up at the resulting ethereal ripple and stretches their wings.Existence on the other side of a summon is fraught with perils.
Series: The Summoning of Angels and Consequences Thereof [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737958
Comments: 22
Kudos: 169
Collections: My faves - Good Omens Whump





	A Demon's Perspective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlayingOnInsane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayingOnInsane/gifts).



> The mirror to "How to Summon an Angel (By Proxy)", the perspective from the other side.
> 
> As always, critique and interpretation welcome.
> 
> Gifted to "PlayingOnInsane" for the comment that made me look back at my starting draft and decide to carry on. I'm sure with your multiple re-reads of the former fic, you'll be able to find the interplay of the two stories. If anybody is unsure how any of the scenarios in this fic link back to the original story and wish clarification I am happy to provide it.

The bindings snap around him as he is summoned into their midst and he sickens, trembling. Wards crash down around him, further smothering blankets of control and he chokes, hacking. The witch swims into view and he flinches, throws himself back, the traps edge sparking at him furiously. 

“W-wait,” he barks, “We’ve been through this, you and me. The angel; _you promised the angel!”_

She considers this, as she begins slowly stalking the outside of his circle. He pushes himself back to the centre, shaking as he tries to keep her in view. He knows there’s holy water here; can taste the warning tang on the air. He remembers what she did with it, last time. 

“You’re in control,” he begs, raising his hands in surrender, “I know that. You know that. We don’t have to, to go throwing spells around or, or messing about with _ropes_ and _liquids.”_

She cracks a laugh then, his insides twisting. “I do not take chances with my life,” she warns sharply, “you would do well not to tell me what I should or should not do, demon.” 

“You’re right,” he stutters, tries to summon a broken smile, “Of course you’re right. Please, just – please.” 

She returns to her tome, tapping her fingers thoughtfully against the page. “After yourself, I summoned one other. And yet, on this third summon, you appear before me again. Why is that?” 

“Bad luck,” he croaks, trying to convince himself he can’t smell what is left of the last entity she summoned. The runes glow as she focuses, forcing further explanation from him. “I’m Hell’s representative on Earth,” he explodes, breathless, “Others come and go but I _stay_ here, I’m the _closest_ I guess, so the summon latched onto me.” He wraps his arms around himself, wheezing. 

“I see,” she hums, “the angel tricked me.” 

“What?” He chokes, head snapping up, “ _No.”_

“Summons are not simple to perform,” she lectures harshly, “If I had expected to summon the same creature into my circle so frequently and so _early_ I wouldn’t have wasted the resources.” She glares down at him and he shrinks under her judgement, his heart pounding. “The angel seeks to make summoning too costly a business. I had wondered at its interest in you.” 

“No, he – the angel just – you know how it is, two enemy agents assigned to the same ground, over a few thousand years you get comfortable. Professional courtesy, to help each other out.” 

She smooths down a page, his eyes following her movements warily. “Perfectly capable of locating a new opponent to waste its time with, I’m sure,” she tuts dryly. 

A pulsing ripple echoes throughout the abode. Crowley flinches. “You will not move a muscle,” she commands, “not so much as a twitch from you.” The magic seizes him, his lungs freezing in his chest as the circle ensures his obedience. She leaves his line of sight. He hears the latch of the door click. He kneels there, long frigid moments of paralysis until she returns. “Revoked,” she waves idly as she steps back in front of him and he collapses forward, heaving air into his panicking corporation. “It would seem the angel has returned for you. How sweet of it.” He closes his eyes and focuses on breathing, intent on not threatening whatever truce Aziraphale may have made with this witch. The rustle of paper reaches his ears. 

“You are very inconvenient,” she scolds, “I had plans for your essence, you know. Do you have any idea how much trouble I went to, securing the ingredients for this ritual?” He swallows, his fingers curling into his palms. The scent of _danger_ suddenly grows threateningly close and he startles back, kicking himself away. “ _Stay,”_ she demands, his body curling in on itself as he obeys. The pouch of holy water lies in wait in her hand and he finds himself breaking into terrified tremors. The lingering remnants of the murdered demon still stain her walls with their stench. “You will take this and you will place it atop your tongue,” she orders, “and bind it behind your head. _Tightly_.” She tosses the pouch and its partner strap across the divide, his hands reaching out to catch it as ordered. The sheer _wrath_ of the liquid at his daring vicinity lashes against his skin and he drops it in a panic. Even before it has landed, he is reaching back out to it, the magic driving his actions. He chokes as the low sting touches his tongue, even through the wrapping. Just a little while. Just a short time and she will send him out to Aziraphale. His fingers fumble at the back of his head, the magic ensuring the bind is secure. The angel is already here, this time. He is right outside and Crowley only has to survive long enough for her to release him. 

“Should the thought of harming me in any way pass through your mind, you will feel the press of destruction pulling you back,” she weaves her words. He feels his jaw clench around the fatal package, terror sinking through his bones until the magic settles and he can control himself again. “If you try to strike me you will first pierce the skin that you already hold between your fangs,” she orders and Crowley thinks _careful, careful, careful_ frantically. 

“Now kneel at the edge of the circle and present your back to me. Place your hands behind.” He does as bid, feels the raw scraping of peculiar rope skim his skin. He doesn’t test it, when she steps back. He just wants to leave. “Stay still,” she orders and he freezes, magic snapping at him as she reaches between his shoulder blades. She presses at the base of his wings, a surge of power. “Reveal them,” comes the command and Crowley feels his jaw tense as he realises how dangerous that could be. He sweeps his wings forward desperately before they are forced into materiality and manages to avoid striking her with their appearance. The magic permits him to relax his teeth against the packet and he shudders in frantic relief. “Hold them in place,” she continues and Crowley prevents himself from flapping the limb out of her range as she runs a searching hand across his feathers. 

“So many uses,” she sighs as he drills his gaze into the warped table leg across from his circle and wonders what he and Aziraphale will drink first when he leaves this place. 

When, not.... 

When. 

She plucks a feather from the midst of his wing and he twitches, a cry of pain gurgling in his throat. She spans her hand across and selects another and he stares at the deformed wood and tries to estimate how many feathers Aziraphale must have conceded to. The suffocating wards encasing the house pulse, once. Weakly. She huffs. “Impatience is not becoming of an angel,” she mutters to the air. Crowley flinches as she plucks another of his feathers. He’ll be out of here soon. Soon. 

The cleansing herbs she spun the rope from are starting to prickle. He can feel his arms falling numb. His tongue stings. His jaws ache. He doesn’t want to die here, the angel so despairingly close. She picks another from him. One more. He feels sick. Suffocated. He wonders if Aziraphale knows why he is being made to wait. 

She moves across to his other wing, the limb trembling at her touch. She slaps the ridge lightly. “Stay still.” He does. The magic makes sure he does. He counts them as he loses them to her deft fingers. One. Two. He pictures the angel outside, waiting to wrap him in safety. Three. Four. It could be so much worse; focus on how it could be so much worse, if Aziraphale gave up coming after him. Five. She stands, he listens to the floorboards creak behind him. She shuffles across the room, stealing his feathers from him. Only five, from each wing. Barely noticeable. Not difficult at all. The death of the one they left to her haunts his senses. 

She breaks the circle and he almost collapses as the magic releases him. “On your feet,” she snaps, latching a hand around his bound arms to keep control of him as he scrambles to obey, his shaking legs managing to push himself upright. Aziraphale; he only needs to do as she asks long enough to get back to Aziraphale. 

He meekly pulls his wings in and she doesn’t protest. He pins them tight to his sides, careful not to risk striking her. When she leads him to the door he almost buckles in relief. Aziraphale is tense, watching him sharply from beyond the edge of her boundaries as he is pushed outside. His angel came after him; his beautiful, blessed angel bargained for his life a second time. Crowley doesn’t deserve him. Aziraphale backs away as they approach, matching them step for step. His eyes never leave Crowley. The barrier ripples and he feels her shove him forward, propelling him through the temporary gap as she seals herself safely back within. Aziraphale darts forward and catches him, the angels soft wings sweeping up around his shoulders, his angel propping him up. Ethereal essence twists around him, a wordless request and he concedes immediately, opening himself up so Aziraphale can spirit them away back to his home. 

As soon as they are spun back into being, the angel is guiding him back to his knees, pressing him into his chest as fingers brush against the back of his head. No miracle, not for this, Aziraphale would never risk it as he brushes the leather straps past Crowley’s cheeks and teases the pouch of deadly liquid from between his jaws. He coughs as it leaves him, recoiling away from it as Aziraphale tosses it far from them. The angel will remove all trace of it later, he trusts that. He doesn’t need to worry about coming across it again. He slumps, pressing his face into Aziraphale’s ridiculous get-up, shivering as the angel begins to tackle the numbing rope around his arms. 

Gratitude, distinct and undeniable, crashes through him. His wings tremble at his sides as he gasps in the shelter of Aziraphale’s presence. He can only hope she does not find it worthwhile to attempt another summoning. 

It is not the first the angel has pulled him from. It won’t be the last. 

Humans are unpredictable creatures, even to one whose role it is to manipulate them. He knows this better than most. The young male stares at him. 

“Morning,” he greets, his eyes flicking with paranoia behind the concealment of dark glasses as he scans the space for threats, “To what do I owe the displeasure?” 

The binding is poorly crafted, sigils out of place. It itches through his essence. The young man staggers back, tripping over his own feet. Crowley would feel sorry for him, if he had the capacity to worry for someone beyond himself in this situation. He starts to count in his head, willing the angel to his side. 

His summoner is gathering his wits, reaching for something at his back. 

_Stall._

“This is excellent work,” he muses lowly, letting his gaze fall noticeably to the runes, “Must have taken a while to draw them.” Nothing is being forced into his vicinity, there is no sound of sloshing liquid so he continues, his heart in his throat. “Even got the sigil of Heroscht right,” he lies, “that’s a tricky one.” 

There’s a sound he dreads and he lets his eyes flick back up, sunglasses still tilted deceivingly towards his feet. The bloody bastard has a spell book. One of the ancient ones, judging by the state of it. The human is paging through the tome intently. He feels a shiver race down his spine. He brushes invisible dust from his sleeve in an attempt to cover his nerves. 

“They’re filled with a lot of unnecessary extras,” he wheedles, acknowledging the book, “may as well skip the nonsense. What was it you were looking for? We haven’t even exchanged names, yet.” 

The humans attention wavers to him, only briefly distracted. He’s settled on a page and begins to read aloud. Time has clearly been spent practicing pronunciation. Spells weave into existence within his space, striking out at him. Crowley grits his teeth and holds his ground. 

“It’s a hard ‘a’, not a soft one,” he snaps, trying to throw the human off his spiel, “and that phrase is completely back to front!” A newly spun spell lashes at his back and he drops to his knees at the unexpected blow. It burrows into his spine, trying to force his wings to manifest. The misaligned runes blur as they struggle to meet the spell in assistance. 

“You’re a shit witch,” he snarls as the words of the boy wrap around his throat, “you’re not even pairing them right!” He knows what the human is expecting to happen here. He can feel the magic pricking at his essence, trying to gain purchase. A binding to the truth, to wring nothing but sincerity from his throat when this mayfly of a being finally gets to the point. A spell of protection clashing alongside, to ensure his inability to harm the summoner. 

The protective bind is specific to his current trappings, completely unnecessary unless the fool intends to move within the span of Crowley’s tight circle. His wings are pulsing under the pull of an unrelated charm, achingly left unfinished, as myriad other half spun spells brush up against him. He sucks in a breath, choking as disintegrating charms scrape splinters of magic across the inner lining of his throat. 

And still his summoner keeps speaking. 

The protective bind clamps around him, lodges itself between the interrupted flow of two runes as an anchor, one of the markings twisted hopelessly far from its intended angle. Without the perpetual rhythm of the circle itself to power it, the protection rite starts drawing the needed energy from his own essence in order to keep itself in existence. He spits and writhes, the binding to truth twisting around his neck as he struggles. 

His wings flail, trapped in the ethereal plane as the spell demanding their presence waxes and wanes as it is forgotten and renewed in turn. There is an end to this, he knows. He has suffered this indignity before, on the floor of an ancient temple when it still was new and its builders looked upon their work with accomplishment and awe. He had corrected his summoners work then, had frantically bade them polish their nightmare of broken spell work, their cataclysmic failure to chain simple charms in sequence. They had believed him then, the yoke of truth thick around his throat as he curled panting and trembling on their freshly placed foundations. They had drawn the bindings of their circle correctly, back then. 

The summoner in this time spins a spell of command into the air, the beginning works of the smothering creation pressing down around him as it is sown tighter to his skin. A broken keening breaks from his throat as his corporation fights, his essence too distracted with the assaults from multiple angles to care much for the shuddering which has overtaken the physical form. 

There is the approach of a crushing pressure, half-spun and fading spells shattering at the wave of power that surges in the air. The human does not react, syllables dripping from his lips until a cacophony echoes from the floor above and the stone of this hidden basement cracks. His summoner stumbles, the book falling from his grasp as an entity of fury and grace splits space itself as they fold themselves into being. A dagger is drawn, a glint of metal from a waist as the human panics, attacking this invading enemy before it can reconstitute itself. 

Crowley watches through a haze of pain as the angel blazes, driving the human to his knees in unwilling awe of one of his Creators first designs. The order is given, this little piece of reality folding to the entity’s demands. Spells peel away, stripping themselves from his being as commanded. The circle shudders and surrenders under the assault, coiling out of time and memory as the humans mind burns with lost knowledge. 

The angel had been the one to free him then, as well. He hadn’t arrived as quickly, hadn’t learned to recognise the backwash of occult energy yet for the indicator it came to be. Aziraphale had to resort to disentangling the enchantments one by one, inexperienced with the magical leanings of humanity. He has had plenty of practice by now. 

The human tilts to the side, falling into a comatose daze as his mind fights to cope, to regain its sensibilities after such a display. 

Aziraphale steps close, kneels down. His hand brushes along Crowley’s throat, the light touch of knuckles from curled fingers easing the bruise of ill-cast magic. He answers the angel’s gentle press for information, a mental assurance that the wrangled human was the only summoner present. He feels the ripple of grace as Aziraphale flicks his fingers towards the rotting tome, the book of broken enchantments falling through infinity in the span of a moment to settle in the angels abode. 

The angel will study it later, Crowley knows, will look for curses and workings of charms he has not encountered before, to be prepared should he ever encounter them. Crowley will pretend he doesn’t notice, will busy himself elsewhere to prevent the look of guilt from stealing across the angels face when he is caught reading a tome of suffering. He had fled, the first time, seeing a book of binding in Aziraphale’s lap. Hadn’t understood, until the next time the angel found him clawing at the walls of a prison, heaving with dread and had rolled the bindings out of existence with little fanfare. 

Some bindings are worse than others. 

He knows what this is before his summoner even swims into view. Wards crash over him, powerful, all-encompassing. This isn’t a summon he can bluff his way through, stalling for time, this isn’t a cry for help or a playful gambit or an ecstasy of religious fervour. Aziraphale cannot reach him here. 

He rolls onto his knees, swings his hands behind his back, one clutching the wrist of the other in silent concession as he bows over himself. “Wait,” he pleads, low sibilant hissing infusing his words in his panic, “Wait, pleassse. Let’s talk about thisss.” 

He risks a glance up at his summoner; a woman of early years staring down at him. He looks back down to the ground, strangles the hissing in his throat as he struggles to sound less like a demonic beast, a creature fit only for the harvest. Don’t test her boundaries, don’t encourage a need to control. He swallows back his panic and tries again. “Let’s be reasonable,” he tempts, hoping she won’t strike him down for the audacity. “You’re looking for something,” he infers calmly, “I’d like my freedom. No reason we can’t both get what we want. There doesn’t need to be any...messy coercion. That would be _such_ an effort for you.” His tongue flicks between his gaping jaws, his eyes darting up to her from his submissive position. Yes, of _course_ there’s the tell-tale tang of holy water in the air. What self-respecting witch would summon a demon without any on hand. 

She breathes in, shudders. Crowley watches her warily. “I bind you, demon of the underworld,” she begins and Crowley feels his heart freeze, “I bind you to my words and to my voice. You will hear my commands and obey.” 

“ _No,_ _wait_ ,” he begs, “this isn’t – just _talk_ to me, you don’t need to do this!” 

She speaks in an old language but every word rings with deliberation through his being. 

“I bind you to truth and honesty, I bind you to speech as it is commanded of you. I bind you to pacifism and weakness. I invoke the right as your summoner to persist unharmed within your presence and command you as befits my will.” 

He presses his forehead against her floor as the strands of compulsion spin themselves into being around his form, the power inherent in her complex binding leaping to fulfil the imprisonment in her words. He feels their hooks snatch hold in his essence, his grip on his own corporation growing thin. 

He remembers a time where he tumbled through the air, claws latched onto one of his own, fangs sinking into a demon he once held uneasy relations with, solely on the command of the humans. Aeshma has not spoken with him since, any favours he once held with her evaporated in the span of a single battle. At least she has seen fit to grant him peace in return for lost favours instead of hounding him for the weakness he showed that day. 

He lets his eyes fall closed as his muscles relax under the sibilant whispers of the new binding. The gaze of his summoner is a notable presence, plucking along the strings of her compulsion as she carefully steps around the limits of his circle. He waits to see what she will do with him. 

“Is it within your power to heal the sick?” she prompts. The strings flex around his throat, the hooks plucking at him in allowance of an answer. 

“Depends on the ailment,” he whispers honestly, refusing to lift his head. She holds him in her power but he does not release his own wrist, keeps his submission unquestionable. Pliant to her will, even if she has forced his cooperation. 

“His heart is what ails him,” she clarifies, “a sickness which makes him short of breath and weak of grip.” 

He shivers, swallows. “Sickness from without, I can heal,” he offers lowly, “if it is a curse of the land, I would hold power over it. With your permission.” She hears the omission, makes a muffled sound of distress. He can feel his use to her slipping through his fingers. A thought flares within his mind and the hooks latch onto it, drag the truth from him in response to his summoners distraught emotions. “The alteration of God’s chosen is an angels prerogative.” He hears the hitch in her breathing, the unwilling admission a brand against his soul. 

The question, when it comes, is determined. 

Angelic summoning was a brief footnote in the history of the world, a stain on Heaven’s image that they would rather be forgotten. The demonic lackey Ipos had whispered its secrets in his ear one shining day in Egypt, basking in the worship of the locals, in return for a favour never spoken aloud. Aziraphale had quailed at releasing a demon other than his companion, Crowley teasing the unthinkable act from the angels hesitant mercy for the sake of his brethren. Unable to pierce the caverns by his own hand he had watched as the angel twisted reality to allow the freedom of another, pouncing on the other demon when they scrambled out from caves of chains. An oath of allegiance was gained that day, a sworn promise not to share the serpents secrets, not to speak of the angel that bent to his bidding. It spoke well of Ipos that no breath of what he whispered in Crowley’s ear that sunny day was heard of in the following span of years. 

Crowley had found the summoners where Ipos claimed, the resulting ripple of angelic summons too unusual to be otherwise noticed. It was a new discovery, an accidental epiphany that has not been repeated since. As it was the first summon of its kind, the humans had to be creative. They had been practicing. The angel lashed within their midst hissed when he made his entrance, light and grace and holy wrath rebounding within their prison. They had not summoned Aziraphale and that was all that mattered. 

He had never learned that angels name, too taken with trying to best their summoners without the marks of fatality while they spun magic through the air, not all of it useful, fought with artefacts both blessed and infernal, some with not a spit of magic in their material but blades sharp enough to pierce. The angels eyes had burned into him when the last one fell, his own essence stung and scalded. He had pulled his own wings into view, held himself at risk of the glorified radiance leaking from their broken corporation as he sought for them to hear the sincerity in his words. 

The angel collapsed when they had driven the memories of their binding from the minds of the humans, the banished memories now only wisps of ethereal dust. He left the humans to their deaths then, if that should be their fate, their souls no longer able to bring the mystery of angelic trappings to whichever realm they were bound for. The angel had expired under his wing, their corporation falling still and silent. He doesn’t know if they returned to their place among the Host or whether the magic of the humans had been too great for the angel to survive. He had broken their bindings and there was nothing of their essence left in their mortal shell. He burned the remains of the markings in hellfire, dragged from the source at great expense, determined the prison would remain forgotten. 

He had gathered the works of the humans and had flown to Aziraphale’s sanctuary of the time. He hadn’t spoken of the trapped angel. He bade Aziraphale bind his memories, his knowledge of the scripts within the scrolls and the markings he had seen within that place of misery. His angel had protested, had conceded. He did not spy without permission, did not lock the knowledge of what he had done from Crowley’s conscious mind. 

There is knowledge, buried within his essence, a secret stash of information that he knows would unlock the secrets to calling an angel to his bidding. Whatever is hidden behind the sealing, he cannot access. He remembers that Aziraphale had offered him the key, requested a way to look beyond the walls of hidden memories should he wish it. He had insisted the solution should remain in the angels grasp alone. 

The question, when it comes, is determined. 

“How do I summon an angel?” 

The answer surprises him, even as it is drawn from his lips. 

“You already have.” 

He feels her confusion crawl across the threads, ponders the words in his own mind as he realises the truth of them. Not in the way she would have intended perhaps, yet she has. As she considers this, the wards around her home pulse sharply. 

Crowley feels his mouth twist, hating himself for the words that spill from his throat even as he knows the inevitable outcome of his captivity here. “Ask him for a feather,” he instructs, “burn it and mix the ash with the poultice you would normally offer.” 

The witch hesitates, rocks with the pressure of another surge against her shielding. “He wants me,” he tells her helplessly, the compulsion willing him onwards with her confusion, “Go out there. Speak with him.” She glances worriedly at the door, her fingers twitching as he dares a look up at her. She bounces in place on the balls of her feet and nods and steps towards the entranceway to greet her visitor. 

Crowley presses his forehead back to the floor, breathing through the waves of unease that the touch of the threads inspire. 

The angel trades with her, the relieved summoner freeing him of the circle and ordering him through the door. She overlays a condition of release and he feels the threads slip from his being as he passes the threshold of her protections, the hooks turning gaseous and ephemeral as they fade. Aziraphale catches him, presses Crowley to him with pure, unblemished feathers. Crowley buries his head in Aziraphale’s shoulder and breathes deeply of the angels sanctuary when he is brought to it. 

He doesn’t like to linger on thoughts of the exorcisms, on the people who summon him just for the pride of the slaughter. 

The priests believe themselves to be following God’s will and the cultists believe themselves capable of glory and controlling that which they will never truly grasp. All of them fall to their knees when presented with the blinding sight of an unleashed angel, begging for forgiveness and acceptance. 

The worst was the widow. 

The world had spun, falling away from him, reality morphing to accommodate her wishes as he stepped from the bustling streets of his favoured city into her hold. He choked back the nausea and had greeted her amicably. She hadn’t cared for it. 

From what he understood from her distraught ramblings as she berated him, one of his fellow entities had set their sights on her husband. He waited patiently through her screaming, learned not to commiserate when her rant turned to her child, his attempt at empathy only fuelling her fury at him as a representative of everything she detested. 

It was only when she dragged a bucket from a nearby room of that dark ruin that he began to protest, a panicked assurance that he had nothing to do with her grief. His back slammed against the wall of the tight summon before he had taken more than a step away from her, the accusatory shouting turning to a guarantee of destruction as he learned where she’d sourced the water from. 

He can only imagine that his Creator took pity on their wayward child for the first time in his existence as he cowered under the wave of water, unable to quiet his frantic prayers to a being who had long ago turned their back on him. 

She tossed the bucket aside when the shower of her fury had emptied it, raving at him as she realised he still lived. He didn’t hear anymore of her ranting as he focused his attention fully on his prayer, the lingering stench of blessing clinging to the bucket she had used. He hadn’t noticed when she left. He had been so certain that he would be left to burn, the blessing left to reignite when God deigned to look away from their repentant demon. 

He didn’t even know which of his fellow demons to blame. She’d never mentioned a name. 

Summons blend together. 

Sometimes he will remember the plea of a lost child or the wrath of a widow but more often than not it is an experience best pushed out of mind. 

Where Aziraphale can reach him, he need only survive. Where the angel cannot breach, he bargains with feathers and ichor on a hopeless demons behalf. Nobody has yet turned down the generous offer of an angels essence, with no known possibilities for summoning and binding one. He lives in dread of the witch who will one day refuse. 

He steps into a rip in space that should not exist and feels the world flip as the summoning takes him. Wards bash him around the head, shouting of their power and impassability and he feels fear curl in his gut. He drops to his knees and latches his arms behind him, each hand grabbing its opposing forearm. He doesn’t take risks with witches, he learned that lesson early. 

Act meek. Act compliant. They can take what they want at will, if they are capable of wards like the ones shimmering past his prison. There’s no quarter to be gained in courting their annoyance. 

The witch comes into view as his vision settles. “Ah, shit,” he breathes quietly, despondent understanding of his position sinking into him. His fingers tighten, nails digging into his own arms. It doesn’t matter, stick with the script. 

“How can I help you?” he offers before the witch can begin drowning him in enchantments, “I assume you’re looking for something. I can be very accommodating.” 

The witch stares at him, squints suspiciously down at her spell book and back over to him. 

“I respond well to simple manners,” he grins, fangs tucked carefully out of sight, “Honest.” Too far. That is the sort of thing that will get him bound in an enchantment of truth for being sarcastic. His heart pounds. The witch is still squinting at him in confusion. She probably didn’t expect her summoned demon to be so compliant. He lets his mouth fall open, just enough to take a deep breath of air over his tongue, not enough to appear threatening, as if he were challenging her. There are a mix of scents present that make him queasy. 

He decides to push his luck in the face of her silence. 

“Were you looking for information? Ingredients?” His tongue flicks out, chasing one of the unusual scents before he can control himself. He snaps it back quickly. “Need a touch of outside magic in a spell perhaps,” he tries desperately, “Assistance with causing or unwinding a curse?” 

She raises the open spell book cradled within her hands and he shuts up. “I just, er, wanted to know if I could,” she shares sheepishly, “originally. I did consider what would happen if I succeeded but that’s. That’s the core reason.” 

So he’s an experiment. It never bodes well, being unnecessary to a witch. They’re not big on the whole capture-and-release aspect of the business, unless it comes with benefits. He swallows and latches onto the possibility she’s offered him. 

“What did you consider?” he asks lightly, hands tightening and loosening behind his back. He needs to tread carefully, if she hasn’t plans for him. 

Her face flushes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hadn’t been expecting the guy that ran me over a few days before the Apocalypse to turn up in my circle.” He’s not sure how to take that in a way that doesn’t make white noise echo terrifyingly through his ears. She groans and hides her face in her palms, the book abandoned to fall in a crumpled pile against the floor. “Oh god, you were there weren’t you? Of course you’re a demon, I’m a bloody _idiot_.” The pages are getting crushed. Aziraphale would have a fit. “I sat in your car,” she accuses, “you gave my bike gears!” 

He considers telling her it was the angel that saw fit to alter her bike. It doesn’t seem the most pressing concern. He really, really regrets their collision on the road. 

She peeks through her fingers in order to glare at him. He ducks his head and squeezes his eyes closed behind shaded lenses. He’s fairly certain this is the witch he’s been dreading. 

“I’m not just letting you walk around my house,” she finally grinds out. He doesn’t antagonise her, keeps his own counsel. “I mean, yes I let Adam in but I hardly knew what he was at the time and he’s really a sweet little boy, now.” There’s a pregnant pause. “When he’s not tearing through the neighbourhood like a hurricane.” He stiffens at the mention of the antichrist, uncertain if it is meant as a threat, a reminder of the part he played in delivering him into an earth-based family. 

She clears her throat. “My point is,” she clarifies, “I do not take chances with my life.” 

He goes very, deathly still. He can taste the sting of sanctity against his tongue. 

“I’m not quite sure what the point of it is,” she continues over his climbing horror, “I’m still figuring that out without Agnes, but I do enjoy it.” 

He hears the scuffing of her leather bound book being lifted, the rustling of pages. She coughs again, lightly, as if something is caught in her throat. He’s stopped breathing. The pages brush the air, settling. They crackle as she smooths them down. He waits in frozen terror for her orders. 

“I won’t use it,” she offers quietly, “Just a precaution. You understand, don’t you?” 

His mouth is dry. He’d prefer it stay that way. 

“You’re in control,” he croaks helplessly. The floorboards squeak as she shifts in place. As she begins to weave her words the magic slithers around him, spinning into his essence. Hooks press lightly against him, ready to latch deeper at her word. The strings she summons are lax, waiting to be given their purpose. 

She slips the final syllables from her lips, falling quiet as the waiting compulsion settles. 

A pulsing ripple echoes throughout the abode. 

“You should get that,” he encourages hoarsely, grasping for ways to delay the inevitable. 

The wards ripple again, a repetitive pulse for attention. 

Breath hisses frustratedly through her teeth. “I’ll be right back,” she promises. His circle hums with latent power, willing to assist in constricting him to her will if she only gives the command. 

True to her word, it isn’t long before she returns. 

“There’s an angel outside,” she greets him tightly, “I thought my gran was joking when she passed down that story.” 

He holds his position, doesn’t react to her statement. She steps around the expanse of his binds, the squeal of a hinge as she digs through a cupboard. There’s a scraping sound as something is drawn heavily across the floor. His circle shivers. Breaks. 

He launches for the possibility of freedom before he can consider the consequences. 

The compulsion doesn’t sink into him as he bolts for the door she returned through, skittering out into fresh air. Aziraphale stands before her home, wings tucked close around his shoulders. He flees for the angel, stops short hissing as her external barrier shimmers threateningly into view at his approach. Aziraphale’s hand raises, hovering in place beyond a thin barrier that neither of them can pierce. He hears her footsteps behind him and realises what he has done. 

He shrinks against the warding, a last-ditch attempt to gain Aziraphale’s protection. He knows it’s impossible. The angel cannot help him in here. 

“I thought they only stopped you getting in,” she states dryly and he quakes at the acknowledgment that he tried to undermine her will. 

She steps out of her doorway and his precious angel begs for him, a single word drawn from his throat, aching and heartfelt. Her threads lie tangled around him and he tried to escape through a barrier she hadn’t expected to hold him. He should never have taken her complacency as weakness. He knows not to take risks with a witch. 

He can only shiver in her sight as she walks around them. Wait for the hanging noose to tighten. She drifts her hand through a bubble of protection, pauses. Aziraphale steps away and Crowley’s throat strangles as he presses against the barrier in desperation. It wobbles, splits. He trips through the newly created gap and darts for Aziraphale, dreading the moment the compulsion stops him short and drags him back into the witches power. 

White wings sweep up around him, Aziraphale’s hand presses into his back. The strings burn under his angels touch, melting and shifting into ethereal ash. He’s so blessedly grateful for whichever tome of torture enabled Aziraphale to learn the art of destroying the threads of his compulsion so swiftly. 

The witch does not keep him, that day. 

Time passes and he settles himself at a child’s feet. The girl hands him a biscuit, arm trustingly breaching the span of the circle. He takes it from her, their fingers brushing. Nibbles on it to appease her and her smile lights up her face 

She tells him her woes and he tempts her into the circle, cradles her on his lap as he rubs her back soothingly. He tells her he has a friend coming and that she’ll need to close her eyes when he arrives because he’s very bright. 

He wraps her in the darkness of his wings, safe from the drunken shouting of her father when he yells for her, crashing into furniture deeper into the house. She closes her eyes and snuggles into his feathers when Aziraphale interrupts the threat of the inebriated man with holy wrath echoing through every room. His feathers tingle from the light. She tells him his friend is loud when he’s angry and he brushes her hair from her face and whispers that he’s only angry when he’s protecting people. 

He agrees with her that it’s scary to not be able to protect yourself, though he doesn’t think summoning demons should really be the solution. The pilfered tome is taken for the angels collection and strings of reality are pulled until the girl is safely settled in a relatives home. 

He prefers not to think on the other summons that take place within this span of time. 

The world warps around him, folding him into a new position within the expanse of space and he feels his foot step down somewhere he has been before. His heart freezes and he swallows dryly. The wards cluster around him, screeching for attention as his legs fold and he kneels in the witches presence, clasping his arms behind him in helpless subservience. 

“Sorry,” she winces as she swims into view, “I didn’t know how else to get ahold of you.” She breaks off, grimacing. “In touch, I mean!” she corrects awkwardly, “Do you have a phone? I should have asked. Do demons use phones?” 

“We tried to find you online,” a male voice interrupts, “I might have, ah, accidentally made that a bit difficult.” 

“Newt broke my laptop,” the witch confides with an accusatory side-glare at her companion, “We figured that was a long shot anyway.” A murmured _sorry_ drifts from her friend. 

He’s not sure what she wants from him this time. He’s surprised it took her this long to call him back, in a way. He lets her take the lead, the witch already having grasped the reins of this summoning before he could. 

“I’m Anathema,” she blunders on, “I didn’t exactly introduce myself well, last time. Or the time before.” Her fingers drum against the back cover of the book she has pinned to her chest. “Sorry about...basically kidnapping you. Again.” 

She falls silent, her eyes creasing with concern. Her friend nudges her, elbow bumping lightly against her ribs. Magic embedded within the circle that called him here hums lowly. Crowley has no idea where this is going. Uncertainty is a mistress he has come to hate. 

“She didn’t think it through,” Newt clarifies on the witches behalf, “She’s been doing that a lot lately, since we got rid of the second book.” Anathema sends a seething glare towards him and he holds his hands up in deference. “What? You said it yourself. You were expecting a smoke monster or something.” 

Her companion leans closer to the circle, voice a pitched whisper that the witch can clearly still hear. “She’s spent months trying to find a way to apologise. She’s been driving me crazy.” She tries to stamp down on his foot in retaliation as he dances out of reach. “I’m having to cook dinner around a landslide of books,” he continues to complain conspiratorially, “I almost put anise in the stew a couple days ago, she’s going to poison us if she keeps hiding the coriander.” 

“So I might have gotten a little carried away,” she admits tightly, “it was reassuring to have a project to work towards!” Her fingers curl around the spine of her book. He follows their path warily. Her eyes flick back over to her captive demon, remembering his presence in among her domestic quarrel. 

“Okay,” she gathers herself, a deep breath to steady her confidence, “Here’s my proposal. Feel free to say no because I understand that this...isn’t ideal. And that I might be making assumptions here because _God knows_ I already have.” There’s the tremor of expectation in the air. No angel present to pull him back should he topple over the edge of her patience. He determines not to test the limits of her tolerance, if at all possible. 

“I think I’ve found a way to permanently bind you,” she states. His insides lurch. His breathing stalls. “It turns out it isn’t all that complicated, once I managed to separate out the parts that were actually important from all the unnecessary glyphs and excessive arcane enchantments. The amount of recondite information hidden in modern works is _ridiculous_ and the cryptic leanings of – ” 

Newt has stepped up behind her and splayed a hand across her mouth. She breaks off with a muffled grumble of indignation. “I’ve not been able to make heads or tails of her all day either,” he concedes, yelping as he snatches his hand away, shaking the appendage out accusingly as the witch huffs. “You’ll go on about it for the next hour,” he protests, “and I know you’re proud about it but maybe you could go into the details _after_ you’ve let the nice demon out of his invisible cage?” 

Crowley stays deliberately quiet throughout the exchange, air whisking softly through his lungs. His eyes are trained with terror on the witch that holds his fate in her hands, the witch he fled from and crashed into and that knows he had a part to play in the Apocalypse that never was. 

“She wants to bind you to ' _the essence of_ _the creatures_ _own self_ ’ and she’s pretty sure it’ll stop you being summoned,” her companion summarises, waving his hands mindlessly between them, complete with finger quotes, “She’s very proud of her accomplishment. Discuss.” 

His attention snaps to the male, seeking an ally. Every nerve alight, caught on the cusp of horror and desperation. 

“That’s all I’ve got,” Newt claims uncomfortably as he realises he has become the new point of interest under the laser focus of the demons shifted scrutiny, “The rest of it goes completely over my head.” 

He tries not to take in the bric-a-brac lining the room, the nearby clutter of everyday items and material components. A permanent binding. A curse, a malediction to trap him forever within the bounds of the artefact she designates. A condemnation, as the witch seeks to anathematise him. A bubble of petrified hilarity bursts within his chest. He wonders if the angel will appreciate her play on her name once he discovers what has become of him. 

“It should work like a feedback loop,” the witch explains, glancing at her companion and visibly biting her tongue as she censors her lengthy follow-up. He doesn’t glance around the room, doesn’t consider which item would be the least horrendous to become locked within. “The spell is supposed to be anchored in the desired object but if I substitute the incantation of – ” she breaks off, visibly frustrated as her companion coughs lightly. “I can reroute the flow of – I can act as the conduit in place of – oh for Heavens sake, this is highly complicated to explain but it should all be very simple in practice.” 

Newt steps closer to her again, rubbing her back companionably. “Simple statements,” he pleads, “Just give him the highlights.” 

She growls and sighs, letting her tension dissipate. “End result, I can tie the anchor into your own essence and if a summon tries to activate it will have to track my magic to the anchor to try and displace it, only it should get lost in the tangle because I’m going to invoke the equivalent of a Mobius strip and give the summon the run-around until the summoner gets bored or the magic runs out.” She finishes, gasping. Sucks in a breath. Turns to look at the companion at her side. “Did that make sense?” 

“Not even a little,” Newt grins encouragingly, “but I’m not the one you have to explain it to. You know I’m as blind as a bat when it comes to understanding all this occult stuff.” 

She turns her gaze pleadingly back towards the trapped demon. Crowley’s mind is spinning. Endless, torturous summons swim through his minds eye. “You’re going to bind me?” he whispers, “to _myself?_ To stop my being summoned? You can _do_ that? You are _willing_ to do that?” Her eyes sparkle, her head bobs enthusiastically. Her previous statement murmurs lazily in his ear, a curiosity to test her own limits, pushing herself to discover what it is possible for her to accomplish. 

“Is that something you’d be interested in? I’ll let you out right after. Or right now, if you don’t want to; the circle just needs to be active if we’re going to do this. Newt pointed out that I may have overreacted last time, considering the other times I’ve met you.” 

He doesn’t trust himself to speak. Nods. Expends only a brief moment of worry over what she’ll seek in return. He would give her a whole moults worth of feathers to have such a prize as she offers. 

Newt backs away as she spins her book around eagerly, pointing at the notations and footnotes she has scribbled within the bounds of the pages. She manages to restrain herself to the basics of what to expect, the minimum expectations off what is required from him in the casting. 

Wild hope is blossoming in his heart and he can’t bring himself to prune its growth. When she begins the incantations, his essence shimmering and stretching as it is pulled towards her, the circle coating him as he passes through its conditional release, he feels the wards pulse. The ripple from the external pressure brushes against his exposed essence and he realises he has forgotten something essential in the longing of the moment. 

He tries to open his mouth, to share an innocuous secret that will allow them to reassure the angel that has arrived at their doorstep. He’s too entangled in the spell, can’t find his way home. The pulses ripple further and disorientate him with the additional wash of magic. Anathema grunts and staggers. Aziraphale would only believe they had drawn the reassurance from him through magical force he expects, on reflection. He feels his fingers spin through the air, breath rattling through his lungs, shaping phrases of powers with tongue and teeth, vibrations rippling across his vocal chords. Anathema moves around him and he realises this is what she meant when she spoke of herself as a conduit. He feels her mouth open in the breath between one enchantment and the next, a frustrated request sent towards her friend. 

The influence of the wards fades as she twists him, threading the groundwork for the curse around him. A banishment into his own being. She paints charms into the air with her touch. 

The companion slinks back in, fear and anxiety staining the air as he interrupts. “When you said he couldn’t get in,” the human demands, high of pitch, “how confident were you about that? Because I’m suddenly remembering all those Bible stories about drowning the wicked and fire and plagues and slaughtered babies and floods of locusts and I’m fairly sure he wants to inflict just, _all of them_ on us right now.” 

An unexpected crash against ethereal protections almost causes him to slip through her fingers and she bites back an assurance and an order to describe this act as an apology and gratitude. 

“I am not telling him you’re binding his friend,” the human laughs desperately, “that sounds like a statement that will get me turned into a pillar of salt.” The male reluctantly creeps back out of the room and he feels the magic building around him. 

She manipulates him in her hold, teasing an impossible anchor through the heart of creation. Reality twists and spins and he feels a silent demand as she seeks his permission to continue. He unfolds himself to her control, wills her onwards, whispers in her mind to complete what she has begun, to show all of them that she is capable of defying the rules of the land. Conviction takes her and magic crescendos and he drowns in the will of the witch. 

In nightmares, a faceless summoner has him kneel. Strings blessed thread haphazardly across vulnerable wings pinned open to her talons, burning his quills, weakening their structure so they can be combed free in great number against his muffled protestations before the witch ties themselves to an agreement with an approaching guardian. A child screams before him, scratching and biting those that would sacrifice her as she is thrown into the waiting claws of a starving demon, his wings sweeping round to swallow her whole; the sin of protection in this circle of blood. Hymns and blasphemes ring through his being, tearing him apart for the crime of his Fall, draining him for their own cause. The world warps and shudders, a million fractals of light shattering from reality as a beast of space itself unfolds in his minds eye. Drowning him. Encasing him. Sweeping him along in the expanse of their light. He becomes trapped in the rotation of their wheel, stares out from a thousand eyes as he watches scenes he remembers reflected in the shifting mirror of their wings. He coils, the purest embodiment of scales shimmering for endless flashes of seconds along his essence. The entity quietens, settles, calms the tides of rage swirling eddies through sweeps of ethereal fur. Feathers fall back into place, curl softly, protectively around his battered essence. 

He groans, the sound travelling through a throat of material flesh and echoing into a world of physicality. Sight falls gently upon him and he finds an anxious face hovering over his own, Aziraphale tense and worrying. Sound moves through him, his tongue too uncooperative to bother twisting the vibrations into words. 

The angel presses against him, teasing against his essence, drawing attention to the foreign magic twined within. He twists, worries, tries to understand. As he follows the magic buried within, he finds it loops, twists back around itself, anchors back upon its own foundation. 

He slips the familiar magic through his fingers, a memory of tumbling through space, of landing in the hold of its owner. Comprehension returns slowly. 

Sound reignites as his corporation speaks aloud what has occurred. The witch bound him. Anathema cursed him to be forever linked to his own state of existence. She, in a word, has grounded him. 

Summons are a thing of the past. 

He cackles and rejoices and buries himself within the encompassing touch of his angel. Spits out the memories of summons come and gone, refreshes and renews himself as he sheds himself of the overhanging dread they inspire. He clutches at the angel and feels the warm sweep of his wing embracing him, feathers he need never sacrifice again pressing against the demons back. 

He made a promise to himself once, standing over the still corporation of one of Heavens own. A self-made oath as he moved within a space of blood and agony, amid the mindless shells of stunned humans. Aziraphale would never experience the horrors of a summon, would never be drawn to fulfil the irrefusable bidding of a human. 

Now, with his own safety assured, he can never be used as bait in such a way again. 


End file.
